ACE Conference 2026

It’s Time to Go Back to School

Joanna Schroeder

It’s never too late to go back to school. The Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER) in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois is now offering an online class in bioenergy systems (ACES 409) for the Spring 2011 semester. The class meets on Tuesday evenings from 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. CST beginning on January 18 and ending on May 10, 2011.

The class is designed as in introductory survey course covering a wide range of bioenergy issues including agronomy of bioenergy crops; harvest, storage and transportation issues; biobutanol and biodiesel production, lifecycle analysis and environmental implications, and more. Lectures will be presented by the course instructors as well as by selected experts from industry and academic research.

The classes will be delivered online at Elluminate.com, a site optimized for online learning that allows students to interact, real-time, with presenters and other participants.

“We’re excited to offer this class in bioenergy online. We’ve been teaching it on campus for three years and have had several requests to offer the information in an online format,” said Hans Blaschek, Director of CABER. “Technology is changing so quickly in the bioenergy arena. This class should be beneficial to people throughout the world who are interested in learning more about bioenergy technology and research initiatives at the U of I.”

In addition to gaining an understanding of each topic presented and progress made in that area, students will learn how each issue fits into the broader bioenergy context and the challenges that remain.

Course tuition and fees are $1,167 for 3 credit hours. Registration is currently open and available until January 18 or until the class is full. You are not required to be a current student of U of I to enroll in the class. To register, go to www.outreach.uiuc.edu, select “NON-DEGREE Registration.”

bioenergy, Education

Update On Biofuels Tax Credit Extensions

Joanna Schroeder

The biofuels industry has been watching closely as the various biofuels tax incentives make their way through the Senate. Today the U.S. Senate voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to major tax legislation containing one-year tax extensions of key biofuels tax incentives including VEETC, the Small Ethanol Producer Tax Credit, Secondary Tariff, the Alternative Vehicle Refueling Property credit and the $1 per gallons biodiesel tax credit for both 2010 and 2011.

“This procedural vote is the first step in the legislative process, and it signals that the U.S. Senate will adopt the tax package containing critical ethanol extensions later this week. We are hopeful that very soon after the Senate enacts this legislation the U.S. House of Representatives will as well,” said Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE).

Jennings continued, “ACE has mobilized grassroots support for the tax legislation and ethanol provisions in the U.S. House so that the bill is sent to President Obama’s desk for his signature. Members of Congress voting for this important legislation will help prevent Americans from paying higher gas taxes, help save existing jobs and create new jobs in rural American and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”

Growth Energy also weighed in on the vote and CEO Tom Buis said, “With today’s vote, the Senate took a critical step toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil, creating jobs in the U.S., improving our environment, and strengthening our national security. Extending the current ethanol incentives today will give Congress the opportunity to implement longer term solutions, like our Fueling Freedom Plan, next year.”

ACE, Ethanol, RFA

An Unusual Competitor To Biofuels?

Joanna Schroeder

According to an interesting article published in Zootaxaca, a taxonomy journal, scientists have unveiled an unusual competitor with humans for switchgrass, an energy crop with great potential for biofuels, the Blastobasis repartella moth. South Dakota State University entomologist Paul Johnson and agronomist Arvid Boe, along with other researchers, are studing the moth whose larvae are born into the stems of switchgrass stalks.

Johnson, who was interviewed by the ArgusLeader, said that if switchgrass, and other similar native grasses are to be farmed commercially, it is important that both science and industry know more about their natural ecologies. This includes how the moth would be affected by growing and harvesting switchgrass for biofuels.

Johnson said that while he and his team knew “the common stuff” they were surprised to learn that the moths in the Blastobasis genus fed on plant matter – they were thought to be scavengers. This could make farming switchgrass tricky, he says because growing one crop limits biodiversity and allows parasites or predators to take hold more easily. He also noted that since the moth is a “burrowing insect” it makes it more difficult and expensive for farmers to rid the plant of the insect.

According to the article, issues such as those posed by the moth are accounted for in a provision included in the 208 Farm Bill which subsidizes much of the cost of establishing a perennial biomass crop such as switchgrass.

In the meantime, there is a long way to go before energy crops, or biomass crops become commercially viable for biofuels. During this time, Johnson cautions that more research is needed among all biomass crops to learn more about the moth as well as other potential pests and his team will continue to “look more closely at how the moth fits into the plant’s ecology, studying its varieties, its predators and its infestation rates.”

“Now we can take that (basic) information and start generating data to answer some of these questions,” he said.

Ethanol, Research

GM Reaches Zero-Landfill Plants Goal

Joanna Schroeder

General Motors has announced that it has reached its global operations commitment set in 2008 to convert 50 percent of its 145 plants to landfill-free status by the end of 2010. Currently, 52 percent, or 76 of its worldwide facilities, now take all its waste generated from normal operations and reuse, recycle or convert it to energy. GM’s first facility to achieve landfill-free status was an engine plant in Flint, Mich., in 2005.

On average, more than 97 percent of waste materials from GM’s zero-landfill plants are recycled or reused and less than 3 percent is converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities, replacing fossil fuel use.

“We’re committed to reducing our environmental impact,” said Mike Robinson, vice president of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy at GM. “Whether it’s a facility that’s already achieved landfill-free status or one of the many that are nearly there, every site is serious about finding ways to reduce and reuse waste.”

The first step in the process for each plant was for employees to focus on reducing the amount of waste generated. From there, as much as possible, the waste was recycled. Each month, the plants monitor, measure and report on their performance against waste-reduction goals. The collected data, that originally set the stage for the landfill-free initiative, demonstrates what materials are being generated, reused and recycled, and reveals areas for improvement. Ultimately, The results helped form a process that enables all facilities to replicate best practices.

According to a GM news release, this year the company has recycled or reused 2.5 million tons of waste materials at its plants worldwide that would fill 6.8 million extended-cab pickup trucks. If parked end-to-end they would stretch around the world.

“It’s all about being creative, lean and rethinking traditional manufacturing processes,” said John Bradburn, manager of GM’s waste-reduction efforts. “When you think of what it would take for a family of four to not produce any trash for a year, that’s quite a task. This is 76 sites around the world and about 70,000 employees committed to the cause.”

Bradburn continued, “I believe our employees were willing to engage because they could relate to what it means. People don’t want to be wasteful; they want to help the environment. It’s become a sense of pride for those that work at those facilities, and it reflects in quality and throughput.”

bioenergy, Company Announcement, Environment, Waste-to-Energy

New Land Use Change Report Released

Joanna Schroeder

According to CABI and Hart Energy Consulting, while there has been much attention given to the idea that biofuel development will change land use around the world, there are still many gaps in knowledge about how much and in what ways those changes will manifest. To determine where more information about land use change is needed, the two organizations worked together to author a new paper, “Biofuels and Land Use Change: A Science and Policy Review.”

The report sets forth the premise that while two goals of biofuel production are to reduce greenhouse gases and to protect natural resources, they may in fact exacerbate the problems rather than help them. Therefore the report recommends that before decisions are made, future monitoring, experimenting and modeling in different locations must take place in an effort to assess the true impact of changing land use caused by biofuel production.

“There is a need to establish standard methodologies to evaluate the wide range of effects, direct and indirect, that ensue from the growing global biofuels market. This would enable much greater confidence when comparing future studies and enable decision-makers to make more informed judgments,” said Tammy Klein, Assistant Vice President of Hart Energy Consulting.

According to the report, “marginal, abandoned, degraded and unused lands” are really the only possible sources of significant land for biofuel expansion. Yet the report continues, it is these very lands that are rarely quantified and so the report asks how much of this type of land is available and what problems would need to be overcome to bring these lands into production.

In conclusion, the report calls for the establishment of effective land-use management and best agriculture practice policies for biofuels feedstock crops.

“The switch away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives will have unforeseen consequences, especially for highly populated resource-poor countries,” said Janny Vos, Business Development Manager of CABI. “At present the role of biofuels in this process is unclear. We hope that this review goes some way towards identifying the questions that need to be asked about land use change, and the areas in which we need further research.”

Biodiesel, biofuels, Ethanol, Indirect Land Use

Ethanol By the Numbers

Cindy Zimmerman

U.S. exports of ethanol remained strong in October at 34.9 million gallons, according to the latest government information, with the total of January-October at a record high 286 million gallons. The current forecast is for the U.S. to export more than 325 million gallons of ethanol this year, more than double the previous record of 158 million gallons in 2008.

Renewable Fuels AssociationIn a post on the Renewable Fuels Association’s E-xchange blog, RFA’s Geoff Cooper explains that the totals include both denatured and undenatured (non-beverage) ethanol.

Shipments of denatured ethanol totaled 21.9 million gallons, down from the 2010 high of 27.5 million gallons in September. Canada continued to serve as the top destination, with shipments of 13.2 million gallons of denatured product. The United Kingdom, Jamaica, the Netherlands, and Australia (in that order) rounded out the top five. These five destinations accounted for 98% of U.S. denatured ethanol export shipments in October.

As for undenatured (non-beverage) ethanol, U.S. producers exported 13 million gallons in October, up 15% from September. The United Kingdom was the top destination for undenatured product, followed (in order) by Mexico, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Australia.

Meanwhile, exports of the ethanol co-product distillers dried grains (DDGS) were down in October from September, but are still ahead of last year’s record level at 7.57 million metric tons. Last year the U.S. ethanol industry exported 5.64 million metric tons of distillers grains worth nearly $1 billion – this year the forecast is for about nine million.

Ethanol production is expected to reach 13.8 billion gallons this year, which would also be a record. As a percentage of average daily gasoline demand, average daily ethanol production for the week ending December 3 was 10.24% – the highest since weekly data became available, according to RFA. In the previous four weeks, RFA says ethanol producers averaged record outputs per day, using about 14 million bushels of corn each day to produce 902,000 barrels of ethanol and 105,973 metric tons of livestock feed, including 93,570 metric tons of distillers grains, and more than 4 million pounds of corn oil a day.

Despite all these records, USDA kept the forecast for corn used in ethanol production at 4.8 billion bushels, which caused American Farm Bureau Federation economist John Anderson to question why. “Ethanol production has continued to trend upward in recent weeks, and we would have expected USDA to show a small drop in the corn carryover level, or at least some adjustments within the various corn-use categories, but they didn’t. They basically stayed put with the demand side of the corn balance sheet,” said Anderson.

USDA’s chief economist Joe Glauber explained why they held the corn use for ethanol the same this month. “We’ve been looking at the weekly production numbers and we are certainly producing at a very strong rate. But what we’ve seen is a weakening in the returns to ethanol producers over the last few weeks,” Glauber said, causing them to decide not to change the number at this point. USDA had lowered corn production figures for this year in the November forecast, but will not update that figure until January, so it stands at 12.54 billion bushels.

Ethanol, Ethanol News, RFA, USDA

Broin Recives Indiana Paul Dana Award

Cindy Zimmerman

The Indiana State Department of Agriculture has recognized POET President and CEO Jeff Broin with the 2010 Paul Dana Excellence in Bioenergy Leadership Award. POET is the nation’s largest ethanol production company with 27 plants producing more than 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol a year.

ISDA Director Joseph Kelsay presented the award during the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Awards Ceremony at the Governor’s Residence in Indianapolis. The Paul Dana Award recognizes those who have exemplified leadership and innovative vision in the bioenergy industry. Governor Daniels and Lt. Governor Becky Skillman established the award to honor the memory of Indy Racing League (IRL) driver Paul Dana, a strong supporter of Indiana’s growing biofuels industry who was killed in a racing accident in 2006. Broin is pictured here during last week’s announcement of ethanol’s new involvement in NASCAR.

Other 2010 Greater Indiana Clean Cities Award recipients include Thornton’s Quick Café and Market for outstanding achievement in the implementation and promotion of E85 retail locations; Doug Henderson of Co-Alliance for outstanding achievement in the sale and support of biodiesel blended fuel; and the City of Indianapolis for outstanding achievement in the deployment of hybrid vehicle technology.

During the awards presentation, Kelsay emphasized the importance of biofuels in Indiana. “Indiana is proud of the rapid success we have had in biofuels production. Indiana’s new ethanol and biodiesel plants have created direct jobs for Hoosier workers and many more in other supporting industries,” he said. Kelsay notes that in January 2005, Indiana had only one ethanol plant and currently the state has 11 completed ethanol plants and two more under construction. Indiana had no biodiesel plants in 2005 and there are now five biodiesel plants with a combined capacity of more than 100 million gallons of biodiesel. He also noted that the proliferation of E85 and biodiesel pumps in the state has grown dramatically in the past five years.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, Ethanol News, POET

Exelon Completes John Deere Renewables Purchase

Cindy Zimmerman

Exelon Corporation today announced that the previously announced acquisition of John Deere Renewables has been completed.

The acquisition of Deere’s wind energy business gives Exelon 36 wind projects in eight states that will now be called Exelon Wind, a division of Exelon Power. The projects amount to 735 operating megawatts of clean, renewable energy – enough to power 160,000 to 220,000 households. According to the company, the acquisition provides incremental earnings starting in 2012 and cash flows starting in 2013 and is a key part of Exelon 2020, the company’s business strategy to eliminate the equivalent of its 2001 carbon footprint by 2020. Exelon reports it is now halfway to its goal and remains the least carbon-intensive of the large U.S. electric utilities.

Electricity, Energy, John Deere, Wind

A New Look At Ethanol’s Net Energy

Joanna Schroeder

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Merle Anderson for my Between the Lines blog (Three Pieces of Advice From the Father of Ethanol). For those who truly know, love and respect Merle, he is none other than the “Father of Ethanol”. It has been more than a year since I last caught up with him at the 2009 American Coalition of Ethanol’s (ACE) annual conference and it was high time to get his view on a few things and that I did.

One thing of special interest was his new way of looking at an old problem that seems to plague the industry, although usually only when someone is flinging mud, and that is the topic of net energy. Ethanol supporters agree that ethanol is a net energy winner. Ethanol opponents argue that ethanol is a net energy loser. Merle argues when you go the cornfield and play it out, ethanol wins the World Series.

Here is a letter that Merle has written on the topic and is being republished here on DomesticFuel with his permission and to honor his long-time contributions to his work in the industry. Merle – keep up the great work! (BTW – Merle Anderson is the Chairman Emeritus of ACE.)

Ever since area farmers started producing ethanol, opponents have been questioning the total energy balance of ethanol production.  And now more than ever, with gas prices pushing three or even in some parts of the country, four dollars a gallon, it is my understanding that we have widespread agreement that our country needs to reduce our imports of foreign oil. So let me agree that we need to produce and use more ethanol to replace that foreign oil.

Looking at the different types of energy to produce ethanol, there are basically three, natural gas, electricity and fossil fuel. We should understand that most of the energy used to produce ethanol comes from natural gas and electricity. By using natural gas and electricity, we are simply trading in commerce and is only good for the country. So then let’s look at how much fossil fuel are we investing in ethanol production and what are we getting for it. So let’s go to the cornfield and see how it plays out.Read More

ACE, Ethanol, Opinion

Is Natural Gas A Viable Partner In the Low-Carbon Future?

Joanna Schroeder

Is, and should, natural gas be a viable partner in the movement to a low-carbon future? This was the question asked and answered in a new report published by the Worldwatch Institute and authored by Worldwatch Sustainable Energy Fellow Saya Kitasei. “Powering the Low-Carbon Economy: The Once and Future Roles of Renewable Energy and Natural Gas,” concludes that natural gas and renewable energy such as wind and solar, could form a powerful partnership to move the world toward low carbon energies.

The report notes that “natural gas offers a cleaner alternative to coal” and sets up the stage for natural gas to play a starring role in the future of energy for its “flexibility, scalability, and cost-competitiveness to complement the variable distributed nature of wind and solar power generation.”

“If the world is to truly move away from coal as its primary means of electricity production, then natural gas must realize its full potential as a partner to the renewable energy industry,” said Kitasei. “Natural gas is undergoing a renaissance. Our research indicates that the environmental community should pay attention to the opportunities that this resource brings. When deployed as part of an integrated approach, renewable energy and natural gas can reduce coal dependence, deliver emissions reductions, and catalyze the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

According to the report, there are four key mechanisms that can enable the combination of renewable energy and natural gas to displace coal and provide needed reductions in power-sector emissions:

  • • First, air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury must be tightly regulated.
  • • Second, a cost must be attached to emitting carbon dioxide.
  • • Third, electricity system operators should allow wind and solar plants to balance their own output with on-site resources.
  • • Fourth, the markets on which system operators purchase electricity must be highly responsive, allowing them to react to fluctuations in electricity supply and demand as rapidly as possible.

The report is part of a larger look that the Worldwatch Institute is taking into the role of natural gas in the future global economy.

Electricity, Energy, Natural Gas, Research, Solar, Wind